I dropped Felicia home. She lived in a large apartment complex in the better part of town — she seemed a little embarrassed about it, which I found quietly endearing. I didn't care either way. I gave her a proper goodnight kiss before heading back.
My leg was hurting. I'd managed to hide the limp from Felicia so she wouldn't worry, but now I didn't bother. Each step home was a reminder of the flooded street and the moment I'd landed wrong.
I told May and Ben I'd twisted my ankle dancing, laughed it off convincingly enough, and reassured them when they mentioned hearing about Electro on the news. I told them I'd been nowhere near it.
I went to my room, changed, and pulled the vial of Electro's blood from my jacket pocket. It still sparked faintly with contained electricity. I slipped it under the bed, lay down, and intended to sleep.
Five minutes later my door creaked open.
"I thought you were giving me a week," I said without turning over.
"That was before you took down a man who fired lightning out of his fingers," came Fury's reply as he settled into my desk chair. "Besides, I'm told you'd already made up your mind."
"Did she tell you my conditions?"
"She did. Tell me something, kid — why are you so fixed on this city? Why limit yourself to a few square miles?"
"It's my home, Fury. Why wouldn't I want to protect it?"
"You expect it to burn down if you're not here?"
"Last month I stopped a man in a wearable tank destroying a city street. Tonight I stopped a man who was hurling lightning bolts at a crowd. Do you still want to ask me that?"
Fury looked mildly impressed — though with him, it was difficult to be certain. He stayed quiet for a moment. I knew the move. Interrogation by silence. I waited him out.
He broke first. "Your other condition. You want to retain the rights to whatever you develop while working with us."
"You provide funding and access. I keep autonomy over anything I invent."
"That's a significant degree of freedom for someone in your position. What makes you think you won't simply take the technology and walk away?"
"The same reason you think I won't listen to you during training," I said. "You need me, and I need you. And you know enough about me to know that's not who I am."
"Yes," Fury said simply.
I smiled. "Good. Because it's true. But I also can't stand by when people get hurt and I could have done something about it. That's not going to change. So as long as you let me do my job, you won't have any problems from me."
Fury considered that for a moment, then nodded. "The conditions are acceptable. Are you ready to begin?"
"What — now?"
"Yes. Did you want to sleep first?" he asked, with just enough mockery in his voice.
"For the record," I said, "I actually did get hurt tonight." I pointed at my leg, which was now visibly bruised from ankle to knee. "I'll need a couple of days."
Fury studied the injury without expression. "Do you need medical support? We have resources."
"No. I don't know enough about my own physiology yet to risk introducing foreign compounds. I'll recover naturally. Two days, maybe three."
"Fine." He stood. "This is the last time you'll see me directly, Parker. I'm assigning Agent Romanoff as your SHIELD liaison and primary instructor. You'll follow her direction. Understood?"
I raised an eyebrow. "Agent Romanoff is my English teacher."
"Yes."
"And when Mr. Dunkan eventually returns to work?"
"Mr. Dunkan has won an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii, where he'll be spending the better part of a year. I wouldn't expect him back anytime soon."
I whistled softly. "That's a lot of planning and expense for one teenager."
"I suppose we'll find out if you're worth it," Fury said, and walked out. The door closed behind him. I heard nothing after that — no footsteps in the corridor, nothing on the stairs. The man moved like smoke.
I lay back down and stared at the ceiling.
Sometimes I really wished I'd never become a superhero.
---
The next morning — Saturday — I swept the house before breakfast. I found ten bugs in my room and five in the basement. I didn't destroy them. I kept them set aside to study instead. If SHIELD wanted to waste surveillance equipment on me, I'd put it to better use than they would.
I ate, and then spent the better part of the day in the basement working on the arc reactors.
They were extraordinary. The energy density was unlike anything else I'd ever studied — a portable power source that, under ideal conditions, should never run dry. The problem was the core material. They were using palladium, which had an aggressive deterioration rate. The core degraded under sustained use, and without a replacement it would eventually burn out entirely. Tony had solved this in Iron Man 2 by synthesising an entirely new element.
I went online and found the news: Stark had filed for a patent on a new element he'd already named 'Badassium.' The new material would sustain arc reactor output indefinitely, eliminating the need for constant palladium cell replacement.
I needed to get my hands on some of that. Unfortunately, only one person on Earth could synthesise it, and I doubted Tony Stark would be thrilled to learn someone had reverse-engineered his most personal invention.
I set that problem aside for now and turned to the repulsor technology. Understanding the thrust mechanism took me most of the day, but by evening I had it mapped. I could see the logic in it, and I had several ideas for alternative applications already forming at the back of my mind.
That night my phone buzzed. Felicia.
F: Hey.
P: Hey yourself. How are you doing?
F: Fine. You?
P: Okay. Just studying.
F: You are such a nerd.
P: Guilty.
F: Anyway, about last night...
P: Yes?
F: You remember what I asked?
P: A proper date?
F: Yeah. Are you free tomorrow?
P: For you? Always. Where do you want to go?
F: Anywhere's fine, Tiger. Your pick.
P: Dinner and a film?
F: Perfect. Pick me up?
P: I'll be there. Night, Kitten.
F: Night, Tiger.
She wasn't much of a texter and neither was I. But I was smiling when I put my phone down.
Apparently I had a date to plan.
---
Sunday afternoon I went to pick her up.
She looked incredible. Tight dark jeans, a black blouse, jacket over the top. There was no fanfare to the evening — no grand romantic gestures. Just the two of us, getting to know each other properly. That was the point.
We watched a terrible comedy. The acting was genuinely awful and the jokes were completely predictable, and we laughed at almost all of it. Then dinner — she insisted on splitting the bill, said it was only fair given what had happened at Julio's.
And now I was walking her home, telling her a story that seemed to be gaining momentum faster than I could control it.
"—and I'm stuck underneath the principal's desk," I said, "she comes in, sits down, and I am praying that Osborn has the nerve to trip the fire alarm. And just as I'm thinking I'm never going to survive this — he does it. I managed to crawl out when she went to see what was happening. But after that I swore I would never, ever follow one of Harry's ideas again."
Felicia burst out laughing so hard she snorted.
I grinned from ear to ear. "You snort."
"Don't you dare," she hissed, still laughing.
"It's the best thing I've ever heard."
"Shut up!"
"I mean it — it's genuinely adorable."
"I'm usually beautiful and now you're calling me adorable?" she said, affronted.
"You're usually beautiful," I said. "When you snort you're cute. Different registers. Both true."
She huffed. I smiled. And then — too soon — her building was right there in front of us.
I looked up at it. Stupid building. Why did it have to be so close?
"So," I said. "I guess this is it."
"How about one more lap around the block?" she said. "I'm not ready to go up and give my mother a full report on my evening."
I grinned. "Sold."
I took her hand and we walked. Then walked again. We went around three, maybe four times — I lost count. Just talking. Easy, unhurried conversation, neither of us wanting the night to end.
Her mother called. Felicia sighed.
"I had a really good time tonight," I said.
"Yeah," she said softly. "Me too, Tiger."
"Would you want to do this again?"
"Why, Tiger," she said, her tone shifting into something lighter. "Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?"
I paused. Was I?
There was a list of reasons to be cautious. She kept secrets — I knew some of them, she knew none of mine. SHIELD, Spider-Man, all of it. A relationship built on this much hidden ground was complicated at best.
I looked at her.
Oh, forget it.
I cupped her face in both hands and kissed her.
She made a surprised sound and then leaned into it completely, her arms wrapping around me, and I heard a quiet sigh escape her that she hadn't planned.
I broke the kiss slowly, keeping her close, looking at her. "Will you?"
She smiled. "Sure. Why not?"
I laughed. "I think I just won the jackpot, Kitten." I kissed her once more, and with that the evening ended. I had a girlfriend.
On the walk home I turned it over in my mind — whether this was the right call. Having a girlfriend meant responsibility. Commitment. And there was a long list of things I couldn't tell her yet — Spider-Man, SHIELD, all of it. So for now we'd take it slowly. That felt right.
---
On Monday I walked into school with a spring in my step.
I opened my locker and then two hands covered my eyes from behind.
"Guess who," she said, and I recognised her perfume before the words were out.
I grabbed her wrists and spun her around, pinning her gently against the locker and kissing her. I pulled back and grinned. "Morning, Felicia."
"If that's going to be how you greet me every morning," she said, a little breathless, "I might actually start liking school. Are you going to let me go?"
"Difficult call," I said, and then stepped back. "Ready for your physics quiz?"
"That's today?!" she said, alarmed. "Great. I didn't study. This is completely your fault."
"How?"
"Because I was supposed to study last night, but you asked me out and I spent the whole evening being emotional about it and completely forgot."
"Relax. You'll pass," I said. "Why do you think I've been tutoring you every afternoon?"
"Hm. Because you like spending time with me?"
"Also true," I smiled.
We went to first period together.
I tried to spend as much time with Felicia as I could over the days that followed. She was genuinely warmer than I'd expected — less guarded than the version I remembered from the comics. Maybe it was her age. Maybe it was context. Either way, she was nothing like the Black Cat I'd grown up reading. She was better.
People noticed us, of course. The school had a short but enthusiastic period of speculation about whether we were officially together. MJ and Harry appeared to have also formalised something — she seemed happy enough, though I still felt a low hum of unease about her being close to an Osborn.
After school our tutoring session ran as normal. I'd been right about the physics quiz — Felicia passed with solid marks.
She had to leave early that day. Her mother had called and needed her home immediately. She went, but not before giving me a goodbye kiss that lasted longer than strictly necessary and — I was fairly sure — was calculated to make a specific impression on a specific redhead nearby.
"So," MJ said, after Felicia had gone, as we packed up our things. "You and Felicia."
"I could say the same about you and Harry," I replied.
"It's not official. He just asked me to a film and I said yes." She shrugged. "Look, Peter — I know it's none of my business, but just be careful. Don't trust Norman Osborn, and Harry reflects him more than he realises. Be careful of letting them pull you somewhere you don't want to go."
"Oh, relax, Peter," MJ laughed. "I'm not going to war."
I groaned. "In some ways, that would be easier."
We went our separate ways. I turned the corner and noticed I was being followed — someone keeping just far enough back to stay in the crowd.
I cut into the nearest alley and waited.
She stepped in after me. I nodded. "Agent Romanoff."
Natasha removed her sunglasses and the blonde wig she'd been wearing. "Your ability to see through a cover is exceptional. Most people wouldn't notice."
"Hiding in plain sight," I said. "Are we starting tonight?"
"You're not ready for field work. I decide when that changes." She tucked the disguise away and gestured for me to follow. "Come. I'll show you where we'll be working."
I fell in about five paces behind her — close enough not to lose her, far enough that we clearly weren't together. As we walked I did my very best not to notice the way she moved. This was Scarlett Johansson's body. I was only human. I did notice. I'm not proud of it.
She caught me at some point, turned briefly, and smiled in a way that contained precisely zero warmth and was entirely about making me feel slightly off-balance.
I smiled back with a shrug. Two could play.
We reached an old warehouse on the edge of the neighbourhood. She produced a gold key and unlocked the door. Inside it was completely bare — bare walls, bare floor, a few crates of paper padding in the corner.
She crossed to the right-hand wall and pressed her hand against what looked like ordinary brick. The wall responded with a soft chime and slid aside to reveal an elevator.
We stepped in. Three floors: G, B, LB. Ground, basement, lower basement.
She pressed LB.
"Did Fury explain the scope of what's expected of you?" she asked.
"I can fill in the gaps," I said. "Field agent. Prepared for anything. You train me, you assess me, and when you decide I'm ready, you deploy me. Am I missing anything?"
"You're also going to learn how to function as an operative — not just how to fight. Infiltration, social engineering, intelligence gathering. How to dismantle an organisation from the inside."
I raised an eyebrow. "You've read my file."
"Your file mentions GST. I mentioned dismantling from within to see if you'd make the connection."
"Don't lead with your whole hand," she said, reading my expression. "Useful skill. Learn to use it selectively."
The doors opened.
I gaped.
It was an underground operations centre. A conference table in the centre, a bank of computer monitors along one wall, filing cabinets along the other. A weapons locker near the back wall. A sofa. A compact kitchen further in.
"Welcome to the Queens safe house," Natasha said. "SHIELD operates it jointly — other agents will use it from time to time, but for training purposes it's primarily ours. Come. I'll show you around."
She walked me through the layout: main room, then down a back corridor — gym, data hub, lab, supply closet.
"Do you live here?" I asked.
"Floor below."
"Right. When do we start?"
"Now. Follow me." She led me back to the main room, opened a wall panel to reveal a locker of SHIELD-issue clothing, and took out a set of training gear. She dropped it in my arms. "Change. Meet me in the gym."
I changed and walked in. Weights, gymnastic equipment, and a large training mat in the centre. I looked around, scanning for her.
No one there.
My spider-sense lit up.
She came from directly behind me. I spun and got my hands up just in time, deflecting the grab but not stopping her entirely — I threw her off-balance, she landed in a low crouch, and her eyes narrowed.
"How did you know?"
"SHIELD doesn't have a complete record of my abilities," I said.
She looked at me steadily and said nothing.
I sighed. "Pre-cognitive warning system. When I'm in danger, my nervous system goes into overdrive — faster reaction time, heightened spatial awareness. I think it has something to do with the spider that bit me. They can sense threats. I seem to have inherited that."
"You should research it. Understanding your own capabilities is a tactical asset."
"Isn't SHIELD already running tests on my DNA? I assumed you'd taken samples by now. You'd have to — that's standard practice for an unknown variable."
"We don't conduct genetic analysis on our agents without their consent," she said, straight-faced.
"That's genuinely impressive. You'll have to teach me how to lie that convincingly. Is it learned or natural?"
She tilted her head slightly, then smiled — very faintly — and shifted into a fighting stance.
"Show me what you've got," she said.
"Come on, then," I said.
The next hour was instructive in the most punishing way possible. My reaction time was excellent, and I used it well — but I'd encountered this problem before. A fighter with enough skill and enough experience doesn't need to be faster than you. They know what you're going to do before you do.
Natasha took joy in demonstrating this.
She put me on the floor, kept me there just long enough to make the point, and then stepped back. "You're reacting. Reacting means you're already behind. Your instincts are a last resort, not a strategy."
"I've heard that before," I muttered, getting up.
"Then start listening. That's enough for today — I need to assess your baseline before I develop a curriculum." She pulled out a phone and made notes. "Use the gym. Don't push the leg."
I moved to the weights and picked up a twenty-pound dumbbell without thinking. She watched me for a moment.
"What styles do you know?" I asked.
"Karate, judo, jiu-jitsu, boxing, aikido, savate, ninjutsu, several styles of kung fu and kenpō. Among others."
I set the dumbbell down. "I'm going to be very careful never to make you genuinely angry at me."
"Smart." She went back to her notes. "Every day: one hour of hand-to-hand. One hour break for schoolwork. Then tactics, fieldcraft, situational awareness. Three hours minimum in this facility each day. Understood?"
"Three hours a day with a highly trained intelligence operative? My only concern is my girlfriend getting the wrong idea."
"Good. Make use of your free time." She disappeared through the back corridor.
I finished the workout, sat down with my homework, and got through it all before Natasha reappeared with a book roughly the size of a paving slab and dropped it on the conference table in front of me.
THE SHIELD OPERATIONAL MANUAL.
The font was very small.
"Read it. Memorise it."
"All of it?"
"Yes."
"Do you follow every word in this?"
"Yes."
"Again — you're going to teach me how you do that, right?"
She ignored me and produced a second book — this one in French. "Language skills. Where are you?"
"Conversational French," I said — and said it in French, for clarity.
Her eyebrows rose. Actually rose. "I wasn't aware of that."
"There's a lot you don't know about me yet, Nat. For instance, I prefer vanilla ice cream over chocolate. Feel free to add that to my file."
She looked at me for a long moment. Then she said, in rapid Parisian French: "What's the capital of Peru?"
I answered. In French.
She switched to Spanish without pause. I switched with her. German. Partial — I told her so, and she adjusted accordingly. Japanese. I told her I'd started studying it and dropped off halfway through. She filed it away.
For the next forty minutes she tested my language knowledge across every tongue I'd mentioned, escalating complexity with each exchange, pushing until she found the edge of each one.
When she was satisfied, she nodded once. "We have a foundation to work with."
I left the safe house late and spent two hours at the Baxter Building helping Reed and Sue with their current projects before finally heading home.
Felicia had called twice while I was underground. I texted her back and explained I'd been at the dojo — a plausible cover, close enough to the truth that it didn't sit uncomfortably.
We talked until she said she had to go. It was gentle and easy, and even a little romantic in a way I hadn't expected to feel comfortable with.
I ate dinner, told May and Ben I'd be keeping longer hours at the Baxter Building going forward, and left it at that.
Around eleven, when the house had gone quiet, I pulled on the mask and swung out into the city.
There was still a job to do.